


I Don't Need A Metaphor For You To Know I'm Miserable

by beeftony



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 12:10:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21373939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beeftony/pseuds/beeftony
Summary: Desperate times make for strange bedfellows.
Relationships: Catra & Glimmer (She-Ra)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 109





	I Don't Need A Metaphor For You To Know I'm Miserable

The stars were nothing like she had imagined.

While she had seen a holographic representation of them when Bow’s dads fired up their projector, nothing could have prepared Glimmer for the endless sea of glittering lights, multi-colored nebulas and far-off planets scattered like diamonds across a canvas of infinite blackness. It was mesmerizing, and she stared at it through the giant window that took up an entire wall of the cell she occupied. At first she had wondered why a prison would offer such a magnificent view, before the mechanical hinges attached to the window had made it obvious. If she or her cellmate acted up in any significant way, they would be space trash.

Considering who that cellmate was, she didn’t have very high hopes of avoiding that scenario.

“Hey Sparkles, can I ask you a question?”

“Can I stop you?”

“Not with your magic out of commission, no.”

Her brow furrowed and she clenched her right hand into a fist, willing it to produce something, anything, but only a few sparks emerged. She grunted and went back to glaring at the stars. “What is it?”

“Do you regret not using that superweapon? I mean, it would have wiped out this whole armada before it even got here.”

“Along with everything else in the whole galaxy,” she added, not looking at her. “Including us. Besides, it wasn’t my decision.”

“Right, Adora saved Etheria. Again. Fat lot of good that did us.”

“I’m not the one who immediately offered herself up as a henchman.”

Catra huffed. “You’re welcome.”

“For what?”

“Uh, saving your life?” She stood up and stalked closer to Glimmer, sitting cross-legged next to her. “If I hadn’t convinced Horde Prime how important you are we’d both be dead, along with everybody else. At least I gave us a chance to get out of this.”

“Forgive me if I’m not exactly thrilled that I’m only being kept alive because I’m part of an ancient superweapon.”

“I don’t exactly want to be locked up either. But I’ve got a plan.”

“Oh really?” She stood up and gestured both arms in Catra’s direction. “Then please, enlighten me, since your plans _clearly _always work out in the end!”

Raising an eyebrow, Catra stared up at her with arms crossed. “Well, let’s see: I nearly destroyed Bright Moon’s runestone after I had Entrapta hack the grid, I had you and your friend wrapped around my finger the whole time you took me prisoner, and I kept you distracted long enough to conquer Salineas just by throwing a shapeshifter your way.”

“Okay one, you lost the Battle of Bright Moon once the Princess Alliance showed up and Adora restored balance to the runestone grid. Two, you didn’t _plan _to get kidnapped so that doesn’t count, and three, I used your own agent against you and brought the entire Horde to its knees even _without_ the Heart of Etheria! You might put us in a tight spot occasionally, but you _always_ lose at some point!”

Catra rocketed to her feet and snarled at her with fangs bared. She glared back, unimpressed. After a moment, the other girl backed down, turning away from her and trudging back to her end of the cell. “This is pointless.”

“Got that right.”

Silence reigned over the next few minutes as Glimmer looked back to the stars. Eventually, Catra’s gaze traveled to the same view.

“They’re pretty, aren’t they?”

She said it quietly, like all the fire that normally raged within her had been snuffed out. Glimmer had never been forced to endure Catra’s presence for this long before, and wasn’t sure how to react. Part of her wanted to keep fighting, but the other girl wasn’t giving her one.

“Yeah,” she finally said. “I never thought there could be this many of them.”

“Kinda makes you wonder how important any of us are,” she continued. “So many worlds out there, and what are we?”

Glimmer sighed and closed her eyes. “I try not to think about it.”

“Yeah, you Rebellion types always think you’re so important. Me? I grew up learning it was a good day if I somehow managed not to piss off Shadow Weaver. I was raised to be just another Horde soldier, just a little cog in a big machine. That’s all any of us were.”

Her expression softened, and her gaze moved to Catra, who was currently pulling her knees close to her chest with her tail wrapped around her ankles.

“And when I rose above that? When Adora left and I finally made something of myself? It all counted for nothing the second Horde Prime showed up.”

“Didn’t seem to work out well for Hordak either.”

Catra laughed. It was brief, a sharp “Ha!” that escaped her before she once again reined herself in.

“No tears for your glorious leader?”

“Please, I’ve been the one actually running things for months. He actually thought he could earn the approval of someone who only ever saw him for how they could use him. I made that mistake before. Never again.”

“You mean with Shadow Weaver?”

It took a few seconds before she answered, low and flat. “Yeah.”

Glimmer stood and ambled over to Catra, careful to keep a respectable distance when she sat down. “So, your plan. What is it?”

“Huh?”

“You said you have a plan for dealing with Horde Prime.”

Catra shrugged. “Same thing I did with Hordak. Make myself useful enough that I work my way up the ranks, then make a power play when he’s vulnerable. Might take a while, but it’s the only chance we have.”

“A while? But there are people who need our help _now_!”

“Listen Sparkles, that kinda energy might get you all pepped up for some little Rebellion mission, but I know how to survive in The Horde. I’ve been doing it my whole life. You keep your head down, play your cards close to your chest, and don’t make a big move until you’ve already won.”

“I don’t need _you_ to tell me _that_. Or have you forgotten how your whole army got wiped out?”

Catra snarled, but composed herself again. “I’m just saying, you gotta be patient and take whatever opportunity comes along. You don’t get second chances when it comes to stuff like this.”

“And _I’m _just saying that if Hordak couldn’t impress him, what chance do we have?”

“We’re still alive, aren’t we?”

“Heh. Guess you’re right.”

It was silent for another few minutes and both of them resumed looking at the stars. By this point in the ship’s orbital cycle, Etheria and its various moons were also visible, along with The Horde’s armada of starships that dwarfed whatever meager forces that either side in their little conflict had managed to amass. Glimmer felt a gnawing in her stomach, not from hunger but from the ever-growing worry that refused to give her peace.

“So I gotta ask,” said Catra, clearly just as desperate to not be alone with her thoughts as she was. “These party things. Do you have those all the time in Brightmoon?”

The question gave Glimmer pause. Not only because the girl whom she’d long considered to be her mortal enemy was asking her such a random question, but because it didn’t seem to fit within the paradigm they’d established. Anything Catra said was either to hurt her, manipulate her, or both. But the tone of her voice and the expression on her face both suggested that she was honestly curious. And it wasn’t like they had any better way to pass the time. Begrudgingly, she let down her guard just a bit.

“Not lately. The last one was at my coronation, actually. Before that it was mainly just festivals and birthday parties.”

“What’s a birthday?”

“Seriously? I thought Adora was just playing dumb this whole time. It’s in the name.”

“Wait, you really celebrate the day you were born? What’s so special about that?”

“Couldn’t tell you. But you have to know what a party is, right? You went to Princess Prom.”

“On a mission to distract Adora and get her sword, yeah. You and your archer friend were a nice bonus.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” she groaned, rubbing her forehead. “But you danced. You knew all the steps and everything.”

“Wasn’t that hard. The invite had instructions for it.”

“So you’re telling me you didn’t get to have any fun at all growing up in the Fright Zone?”

“Have ya _met_ Shadow Weaver? Besides, we made our own fun.”

“Oh yeah? How?”

“Getting into trouble, mostly. This one time we went bot-surfing through the halls and I almost crashed right into Shadow Weaver. She gave me latrine duty for a week.” Her eyes narrowed, and her mouth disappeared beneath her knees as she curled in further on herself. “I saw that as a good outcome.”

Glimmer frowned. “I don’t really know Shadow Weaver as well as you and Adora do. She’s been useful to the Rebellion ever since she defected, but I’ve never been able to trust her.”

“Good instinct. She’ll betray you first chance she gets if it means more power.”

“I figured.” She turned her body to face Catra fully, sitting cross-legged with her hands resting on her ankles. “How bad is she, really? Adora’s told me a few stories, but I always got the impression that you got the worst of it growing up.”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“Don’t want to talk about it?”

Catra shook her head.

“It can help. Talking, I mean.”

“Not with this.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure!” She stood and began to pace. “You really want to know what she did to me? She treated me like garbage growing up because she wanted to ‘prepare me’ for the world. She wanted me to be strong. And guess what, it worked! I became stronger than she ever gave me credit for. But then I made the mistake of thinking that put us on equal footing! I figured hey, if I grew up to be as evil as her, maybe we could finally find some common ground! But the second I let my guard down, she escaped and ran off to Adora! Like I didn’t even matter!”

She stopped moving, and Glimmer rose slowly from the floor, saying nothing.

“And now, she thinks that she’s the good guy, that she never did anything wrong, that she didn’t _make me _like this!” She wiped a few errant tears from her eyes and turned to the side, facing away from the stars. “But whatever. You heard all that when you almost let her kill me.”

“I didn’t…”

“Yeah Sparkles, you did. And I get it. Not like I wanted to show you any mercy.”

“Well for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

Catra scoffed.

“I mean it,” she insisted, moving forward and reaching out to Catra’s shoulder, withdrawing when the other girl slapped it away. “I’ve been so focused on what The Horde did to me and the rest of Etheria that it’s easy to forget how much it hurts its own people too. Shadow Weaver did a number on Adora, but… you had it worse. It’s hard to blame you for turning out the way you did.”

She whirled around to face her, throwing her arms up in the air. “That’s what _I’ve_ been saying, but you’re the first person who agrees with me!”

“Don’t get me wrong,” she clarified. “You didn’t deserve what happened to you, but you stayed with The Horde and continued harming Etheria even after Adora gave you every chance to leave with her. You pushed away every second chance anyone ever gave you because you were so committed to winning it didn’t matter if you took the whole universe with you!” She smiled hopefully. “ But it’s never too late to change. Like you said, even after everything you did for The Horde, in the end it all counted for nothing.”

“And you _seriously_ think I’d be better off joining _you_? Last I checked your little Rebellion didn’t even stand a chance against Hordak’s army. What are they gonna do against Horde Prime, use the Heart of Etheria? Oh wait!” She crossed her arms and smirked. “There’s only one rule in war: always pick the winning side.”

“Well look where that’s gotten us.” She spun around with her arms gestured outward. “I hope you’re happy.”

“Happiness is overrated. And where do you get off feeling sorry for me, anyway? You think just because you heard a few stories from Adora that means you know me? Get over yourself.”

“Whatever!” She turned away and marched back to her end of the cell. “Not sure why I even bothered.”

Honestly, what did Adora ever see in her? Whoever she’d left behind in the Fright Zone clearly wasn’t there anymore. Glimmer sat down in a huff and faced the stars, and spied Catra doing the same out of the corner of her eye.

“You know I almost did leave The Horde?”

The words blindsided her, and it took Glimmer a few seconds to regain her composure. “What?”

“Just once,” she continued. “Right after Thaymor. Shadow Weaver came to yell at me over failing to bring back Adora, and I thought: you know what would _really_ piss her off? The truth. I told her Adora wasn’t captured, she just wasn’t on board with the mission anymore. And that maybe she had the right idea getting away from Shadow Weaver.”

“So what stopped you?”

“Shadow Weaver dragged me in front of Hordak, and instead of grinding me into paste, he promoted me to Force Captain in Adora’s place. He made me feel like I was worth something for the first time in my life. Not gonna lie, it felt good.”

“And that was worth losing your friend?”

“Hey, Adora was never my friend,” she insisted, and a low growl underscored her voice. “I was just someone for her to protect. Someone she could feel superior to. Bet you know what that’s like, don’t you Sparkles?”

“What’s _that _supposed to mean?”

“Don’t forget, I had Double Trouble reporting back to me _daily _on the drama between you and Adora. She always wanted you to stay back, not to get yourself hurt, not to overshadow her while she got to run off and have all the real fun. Kinda frustrating, isn’t it?”

Anger swelled from deep within her, and she stood up quickly and stomped closer, jabbing a finger towards her. “Don’t play your… mind games on me! Okay yes, Adora can be a little overprotective! But that’s just because she cares!”

“Oh, of course she cares,” said Catra, standing up and sidling towards her. “Just not about you. Her little hero complex is the only thing that really matters to her.”

“Rrgh!” She raised a fist, stopping short when her trademark magic glow failed to appear. Catra smirked.

“It’s a shame you grew up in Bright Moon, Sparkles. You’d fit right in with The Horde.”

“Quit _calling _me that! You know my name!” She crossed her arms and turned her head to the side. “And shut up!”

“Truth hurts, doesn’t it? For a Princess you sure haven’t been acting like a goody two-shoes lately. Using Adora as bait, learning magic from Shadow Weaver even after you knew what she did to Adora growing up… how good of a friend are _you_, anyway?”

“I said shut up!” She balled her fists by her side as tears fell from her eyes. “I _know _all that, okay? I haven’t really been there for Adora or Bow or anyone else I care about! I was so focused on proving I could be a good Queen that I forgot how to be a good friend. Are you _happy now_?”

“Like I said, happiness is overrated.”

“Well it’s not like I’m the only one. You can lie to yourself all you want about Adora, but Scorpia left you too. And she _was _your friend. Until you pushed her away.”

Catra snarled and lunged forward, launching a slash towards her head that she barely ducked. She stood there, breathing heavily with eyes like burning cinders.

“Sore subject?”

A growl was the only response.

“Fine, I’ll back off,” she said with a smirk, raising her palms in front of her and taking a couple steps back. She turned around and made her way back to her end of the cell, stopping when she heard a long exhale behind her.

“Wait… Glimmer.”

She pivoted to face her again, her eyes widening by a few hairs.

“What?”

“You’re right. I did push everyone away. Now the only person I have for company is… you.”

“Is that why you keep starting the conversation back up?”

Catra shrugged. “I dunno; we’ve never been around each other this long without something falling from the ceiling. Guess I just don’t like being alone.”

“I don’t either,” she admitted, moving closer. “But we’ve been enemies as long as we’ve known each other. It’s a little hard to adjust.”

“Heh. You’re telling me. But I’m willing to put my claws away if you are.”

“Deal.”

They sat down cross-legged, facing each other. This time it was Glimmer who broke the silence.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Can I stop you?”

She glared.

“Sorry, it was right there.”

“I guess I did walk right into that.”

“But really, what do you want to know?”

“You didn’t have to save my life back there,” she said. “You’re conniving enough that you could have thought up a thousand other excuses for Horde Prime to spare you. Why’d you really do it?”

Catra frowned, her tail twitching behind her as her gaze traveled to the space on the floor between them. “I owed you one.”

“Huh?”

“You didn’t kill me when you had the chance,” she clarified. “Even when I wanted you to. You didn’t have to show mercy like that.”

Glimmer shook her head. “You were already beaten. If you were trying to fight me I might’ve handled that differently, but… you didn’t even defend yourself. It didn’t seem right.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re the good guy.” She crossed her arms. “I dunno. Ever since I opened that portal nothing’s been the same. Adora finally gave up on me, Scorpia left, and in the end Double Trouble betrayed me too. You’re the one person who couldn’t turn on me because we were never on the same side to begin with. Guess I thought that was fitting.”

“You expected a shapeshifting mercenary _not _to turn on you?”

“Stupid, I know. But by the time they were done with me I… I didn’t see a way out. I’d lost. Then you showed up.” She sat up straighter, and her eyes locked with Glimmer’s. “You know, ever since Adora left with you I’ve been asking myself what made you so special. What you had that I didn’t. I could never really figure it out.”

Glimmer tilted her head to the side and briefly opened her mouth, but couldn’t find the words to reply.

“But when the Heart of Etheria activated, it hit me. We’re not that different after all. You made the same mistake I did with the portal. But… then you tried to fix it. You just got up and started trying to break the Black Garnet even though you had to know it was useless. You tried to find a way out.”

“Well what was I supposed to do? Just let the whole universe get destroyed?”

“That’s what I chose. Before Adora stopped me.”

“So wait,” Glimmer squinted. “You’re saying, what? That you saved me because I gave you hope or something?”

“_Don’t_ say it like that. But yeah. Kinda.”

“Huh.” She leaned back planting her palms of the ground behind her for support. “Well, thank you. I guess.”

“Don’t mention it. Seriously.”

She laughed. “I promise. Not that there’s anyone to tell at the moment.”

“I was being serious earlier, by the way. If I had someone like you working with me we could have taken over Etheria a long time ago.”

Glimmer arched an eyebrow and leaned forward. “Oh really?”

“I mean it. That was a hell of a maneuver you pulled. You left your own kingdom defenseless to take down our army once and for all.”

“So did you.”

“Yeah, good point.”

“I don’t think you’d be as out of place with the Rebellion as you think. You’re clever, motivated, and you know how to think on your feet. And you’ve been hurt by The Horde just like the rest of us. You didn’t have to stay with them. I hate to admit it, but you’re the reason we came so close to losing so many times. Without you Hordak never would have been able to open that portal.”

Catra sighed and shook her head. “I should’ve taken over before he even got that far. I’d probably be ruling the world right now instead of being stuck here.”

“I don’t think ruling the world is what you wanted,” she said. “You just grew up feeling so powerless that you never wanted to feel that way again. That’s why you didn’t want to leave with Adora. You didn’t want to keep living in her shadow. You wanted her to see you as an equal.”

“I didn’t… that’s stupid.”

“Is it? The more powerful she grew as She-Ra, the more you upped the ante on your end. If you couldn’t make her respect you as a friend, at least you could be a worthy enemy.”

“That wasn’t _just _about Adora,” she insisted. “It hasn’t even _been_ about her ever since the Battle of Bright Moon. I finally got the chance to prove myself after she held me back all those years, and you saw how far I got.” Her head sunk and she stared at the floor. “Not that it really mattered.”

“Exactly. It didn’t amount to anything because it’s not what you really wanted. I think all you really wanted was someone to acknowledge you. To be your friend.”

“Too late for that,” she said, face still sullen. “I don’t have any friends left.”

“I’m not sure I do either,” she admitted. “But neither of us is really alone. At the very least, we’re in the same boat now.”

“Yeah, I guess we are.”

“So what do you say?” Glimmer smirked, extending a hand towards her. “Partners until we’re out of here?”

She grinned right back, grabbing the outstretched hand with her own. “You got it.”

They both turned towards the window, watching the stars. Glimmer wasn’t quite sure what kept drawing them back to it. Maybe they were too small to matter compared to the greater cosmos and the tapestry of lights they saw in front of them, stretching out into infinity. But as Catra shuffled closer to her, wordlessly, and leaned her head onto Glimmer’s shoulder, all of that stopped mattering. There were any number of people she’d rather be next to right now. Adora. Bow. Her father. Her mother. But at this point she had to take what she could get. There was no other way out of this. And if Catra was willing to walk that path, there was no reason she couldn’t either.

The stars were still beautiful. But now, she supposed, they weren’t quite so overwhelming.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my take on Glimmer and Catra being forced to spend an extended period of time in each other's company after the season 4 finale. A lot of it is me sorting through my thoughts on said finale through the lens of an extended character study. The pretentious song lyric title is lifted from "What's Wrong" by Pvris.
> 
> Thanks to AkariHope for beta-reading and inspiring me to write my own take on this. Enjoy!


End file.
